Barnabas File

When I attended seminary, most of the student body were young men and women who had just completed college.   A few like me had spent a couple of years in the military, another graduate school, worked in a secular vocation, or taught school.     Occasionally, I would have a class with an older person, usually male, who had been “called to the ministry” at midlife and was seeking a theological education in order to be a pastor.   Most of my peers were preparing to work in the local church and being immersed in the knowledge and skills to serve Southern Baptist churches that followed the denominational model of programming and missions.   Quite honestly, we were being indoctrinated as much as we were being educated. How things have changed! A recent blog post by Tom Ehrich pointed out that “seminary education is coming under increasing scrutiny, not only for cost-effectiveness but for quality of preparation. As one longtime fan of Princeton Theol...

“Maybe it’s the final “Oprah-fication” of America.  Suddenly it seems ‘life coaches’ are all over the place.  Lost in your career?  Get a life coach.  Lost touch with your mojo?  Life coach.  Want a big turn or tune-up?  Life coach.  You put down the cash and the life coach goes to work.  Teasing out your dreams, your desires.  Getting you on track to get there.  The challenge may be at work, may be at home.  Maybe both.  Some therapists worry life coaches are getting into their terrain.  There used to be a stigma.  Maybe not now.  This hour On Point:  we’re looking at the boom in life coaching.”-- Tom Ashbrook Tom Ashbrook hosted a discussion today on National Public Radio’s   On Point that featured Genevieve Smith, author of a recent article in Harper’s Magazine on life coaching.  Other guests included Allison Rimm,  a management consultant and life coach, and David Ley, a c...

“50,000 Life Coaches Can’t Be Wrong: Inside the industry that’s making therapy obsolete” is the cover story in the May 2014 issue of Harper’s Magazine.  Author Genevieve Smith actually participated in a group going through several months of coach training in her research for the article.  She also interviewed a number of coaches and prospective coaches.  She gets some things right and others wrong. Let me begin with the things with which I take exception.  First, Smith participated in a program with Coach Training Institute, the organization that has trademarked the “co-active coaching” model which emphasizes the collaboration between the coach and the person being coached.  This is a very reputable program whose training is recognized by the International Coach Federation, but its methodology is only one approach to coaching. Taken to the extreme, the coaching model of CTI can seem humanistic and rather “new age.”  There are other approaches in keep...

“ Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.    Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).  There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle.”—John 19:16-18, NIV The week began with violence.  On Sunday afternoon, I was on the north side of Kansas City when a gunman shot and killed three people on the south side.  Once again, violence has been visited on the innocent, something that seems all too common in our nation.  And once again the hate was directed against the faithful.  The fact that the gunman intended to kill Jews and ended killing Christians only reminds us that an attack based on hatred against any person—no matter that person’s race, faith, or social status—is an attack on all of us.  This is a week that ends in violence.  Jesus is flogged, ridiculed, forc...

Students working on neighborhood project How do you explain taxes to a three-year-old?  I was leaving the house one day last week to pick up the completed tax return from our preparer.  Cooper, our grandson, asked where I was going.  When I told him, I could tell that the idea ‘taxes” was not on his radar.  I started to tell him that taxes help pay for the fire fighters and police officers (but they are only indirectly funded by Federal tax money).  I did tell him that the money we paid to the government helps build our roads.  I suppose I could have told him that the money helped to pay for our military but really did not want to go down that road too far.  As I thought about this later, I could have explained that our taxes (at least for now) help people who are sick and do not have food.  This whole train of thought led me to think about the things that our tax money pays for that were provided in other ways in the past.  When peo...

The Mall in Washington, DC, is one of my favorite open spaces.  Anchored at one end by the Lincoln Memorial and at the other by the U. S. Capitol building, the Mall is impressive not because of what surrounds it but for what it represents.  The Mall is an area that symbolizes the openness of the United States of America to fresh ideas and new people. Certainly, one does not have to look too closely to observe the security precautions even in this area, but I am always impressed by this great open space in the middle of a busy major city.  On most days, the Mall is occupied by people walking, jogging, playing games, taking pictures, or just “hanging out.”  These are U. S. citizens from many different ethnic backgrounds and many of the states, representing the diversity of our nation.  Visitors from other countries are evident as well, coming to see the national capital of our country and its many sights. For me, the Mall is an expression of community....